Intel uses Supreme Court Comcast ruling in its own antitrust case

The Supreme Court issued its decision in Comcast v. Behrend just last week, but Intel Corp. has already used the ruling to defend itself in its own long-running antitrust suit.

The Comcast decision, which the high court issued on March 27, found that a group of Philadelphia-area cable subscribers should not have been allowed to sue as a group because they did not adequately show how damages could be calculated on a class-wide basis.

Intel, which is mired in allegations that it engaged in anticompetitive practices when marketing its microprocessors, filed court papers citing Comcast just two days after the high court’s ruling, arguing that the proposed class of consumers in its own case has not introduced consistent theories for liability and damages.

Some legal experts, however, say that Comcast was a narrow ruling, meant to apply only to the facts of that particular case, Thomson Reuters reports.

Intel has already reached a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission and paid a fine to the European Commission over the antitrust allegations. The class action suit in question was filed in 2005. In July 2010, a special master in the case recommended that the plaintiffs’ motion be denied, but a judge resurrected the suit last fall when he ordered additional briefing on class certification. An evidentiary hearing is slated for July.